TIOBE names Python the programming language of 2018

The Python programming language is continuing to increase so much in popularity that the TIOBE Index has declared it is the programming language of 2018. The index reported in August that Python was steadily closing in on C++ and headed towards the top three programming languages. As of the TIOBE Index’s January 2019 report, Python is now the third top language.

“For almost 20 years, C, C++ and Java are consistently in the top 3, far ahead of the rest of the pack Python is joining these 3 languages now. It is the most frequently taught first language at universities nowadays, it is number one in the statistical domain, number one in AI programming, number one in scripting and number one in writing system tests. Besides this, Python is also leading in web programming and scientific computing (just to name some other domains). In summary, Python is everywhere,” TIOBE wrote.

Python was first released in 1991. Since then, it has become a first-class enterprise language used in production. It is commonly used for data science and machine learning applications. Recently, Python creator and chief Guido van Rossum stepped down as the language’s BDFL. As a result, the language’s team has put a new governance model in place.

“The Python programming language has won the title ‘programming language of the year!’ Python has received this title because it has gained most ranking points in 2018 if compared to all other languages. The Python language has won 3.62%, followed by Visual Basic .NET and Java. Python has now definitely become part of the big programming languages,” TIOBE wrote.

“Other interesting positive moves of 2018 are MATLAB (#18 to #11), Kotlin (#39 to #31), Rust (#46 to #33), Julia (#47 to #37) and TypeScript (#167 to #49). The following languages had a hard time in 2018: Ruby (#11 to #18), Erlang (#23 to #50), F# (#40 to #64) and Alice (#26 to #66). Let’s do one prediction for 2019: Kotlin will enter the top 20. We see a fast adoption in the industrial mobile app market of this language,” TIOBE wrote.

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Christina Cardoza is the News Editor of SD Times. She is responsible for the oversight of the daily news published to the website as well as the company's weekly newsletter, News on Monday. She covers agile, DevOps, AI, machine learning, mixed reality and software security. She is an undeniable nerd who loves Marvel comics and Star Wars. On Follow her on Twitter at @chriscatdoza!